| I'm pretty disappointed by all the armchair lawyering in this thread that isn't defending the individual/citizen in this case. .gov, .fr, etc were created for a reason. Trademark law is intended to protect people from intentionally misleading branding. These two items taken together should make it obvious that France.gov is the only name the government of France 'should' be entitled to. If you are willing to say that France.com should be available to the French government... then it's a slippery slope. Are you going to give them to right to take down critical websites with titles like Francesucks.com or Francegenocide.com. These lawsuits have played out before between private individuals like Madonna et al. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybersquatting Why should a government be privileged to seize any .com that they deem to be in their interest? There is no evidence that France.com was not being used in a nefarious or misleading way.... in fact it sounds like the government had at least unofficially endorsed the site's usage and contributed. It was being used for a bonafide business. I really think anyone defending a government's 'right' to seize this domain name is forgetting the underlying liberal democratic principles of the internet. Rights are for people, not governments. I don't see how France acting in this way serves its people constructively. EDIT: It seems like all people care to comment on is the fact that they (and I) already know that .gov is for the US government, while other countries have their own TLDs. Let me play Devil's Advocate for a moment to hopefully make you think more critically about this decision. What if you owned a famous China (dishware, cups, etc) company and registered China.com back in 1994. Do you think China should be allowed to take that domain? Or another, what if a new country were formed that were suddenly the same name as a pre-existing multinational corporation.... Government wins? Always? |